No re­peat of 1998: Tha­bane

PRIME Min­is­ter Thomas Tha­bane has as­sured Ba­sotho that there will be no re­peat of the 1998 dis­tur­bances which led to the death of hun­dreds of peo­ple fol­low­ing the ar­rival of South­ern African De­vel­op­ment Com­mu­nity (SADC) forces.

Dr Tha­bane told Jour­nal­ists upon his ar­rival from New York where he at­tended a two-week United Na­tions Gen­eral Assem­bly meet­ing that his govern­ment does not pro­mote vi­o­lence.

He also briefed jour­nal­ists on the out­comes of the SADC Dou­ble Troika Sum­mit con­vened in Pre­to­ria, South Africa to dis­cuss the pro­vi­sion of as­sis­tance to Le­sotho in man­ag­ing its se­cu­rity cri­sis.

“I would like to as­sure you all, and very se­ri­ously, that we are not go­ing to tol­er­ate vi­o­lence. It does not mat­ter who starts it. The peo­ple have spo­ken loud and clear that enough is enough,” Dr Tha­bane said.

He said SADC has made fresh com­mit­ment to help re­store po­lit­i­cal and se­cu­rity sta­bil­ity by im­ple­ment­ing the re­gional bloc de­ci­sions of a na­tional re­form agenda.